Tuesday 3 November 2015

Vintage Doctor Who Target Book Covers - season two

Time moves quickly on and here is the second season of Doctor Who all dolled up as 70s style Target books. As some of you may have noticed, I've given many of them alternate titles. Back in 1973, the Radio Times published a special magazine to mark the show's tenth anniversary. Contained within this colourful extravaganza was a lavishly illustrated episode guide to every Doctor Who adventure up to that point - and a few yet to come! 

The titles for many of William Hartnell's were not those we have come to know and love over the years. Instead of using the name given by the production team (and, at the time, unpublished and unbroadcast), the Radio Times elected to refer to each story by the title of its first episode. Thus 'The Keys of Marinus' became the lurid 'The Sea of Death', 'The Dalek Invasion of Earth' became the somewhat bleaker 'World's End' and so forth. At the time, we young fans did not know any better. We just revelled in the colour photos from 'The Celestial Toyroom' and how hot all the companions from the sixties looked in their special RT photoshoot. 

For this little project, I've gone back to that time and used similar titles for my Target covers. Hopefully, it gives them a little period charm and doesn't irritate the pedants who seem to think that '100,00BC' is any better a title than 'An Unearthly Child' for serial A. It might be more accurate as far as the faded original BBC paperwork is concerned but all it does nowadays is make it sound like a naff 21st century blockbuster movie that time has now forgot.

Season three will follow shortly - once I've finished drooling over all those lovely colour photos from 'The Celestial Toyroom'.